Britpave welcomes new urban bus report

BRIT1-18
25th January 2017

BRITPAVE WELCOMES NEW URBAN BUS REPORT

Britpave, the transport infrastructure group, has welcomed the new report from the Chartered Institution of Highways & Transportation (CIHT). The report ‘Buses in Urban Environments’ calls for the recognition of the importance of providing high quality bus routes is needed right from the outset of planning for new urban developments. It presents evidence that high quality bus services attract high levels of use, and urges a coordinated approach across all relevant stakeholders to ensure these services become integral to the urban fabric.

Bus travel offers significant socio-economic benefits. Accounting for two out of three public transport journeys, the bus plays an important, and can play an even greater, role in improving local commuting, reducing congestion and carbon emissions and creating more liveable cities. However, the potential of bus travel is being stifled by increased traffic congestion.

Britpave believes that the solution is the guided busway that segregate buses from other road traffic thereby removing the problems of traffic congestion, obstruction from parked vehicles and the use of bus lanes by unauthorised vehicles. This allows the operation of regular bus services that have more reliable and faster journey times which make taking the bus a more attractive travel option.

Concrete guided busways are relatively simple to construct and are cheap in comparison with light rail systems. They typically consist of two 180mm high concrete kerbs set 260mm apart on a concrete roadway. The kerbs act both the guide for the bus and a physical segregation from other traffic. Once in the guideway, the bus is guided by two lateral guide wheels connected to the bus steering mechanism. On leaving the busway the kerbs terminate and release the guided wheels allowing the driver to resume steering.

Heather Ceney, Associate and Permanent Way UK Business Leader at Arup and Chair of the Britpave Rail and Bus Task Group said: “Bus travel plays an important, and can play an even greater, role in improving local commuting, reducing congestion and carbon emissions and creating more liveable cities. The new CIHT highlights this and calls for planning and transportation professionals to promote bus use through good urban design. The provision of guided busways should be considered as part of that design.”

A recent guided busway project is the Leigh to Ellenbrook guided busway in Greater Manchester. Latest figures from First Manchester which runs the Vantage bus services on the busway, show that patronage of the busway has increased in 45,000 a week with a fifth of passengers having switched to the bus from their cars.

‘The Benefits of Concrete Guided Busways’ is available as a free download from www.britpave.org.uk